Reputator

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

Also, just because I apparently want to hijack every thread to talk about this (kidding, but I had a thought that was tangentially related to this topic and wanted to run with it), there's a legitimate argument that racism didn't cause slavery - slavery caused racism.

 

It's kind of a fascinating rabbit hole to jump down. The first enslaved Africans didn't arrive in America until 1619. For a while, most labor in the south was done by indentured servants with a few enslaved people here and there, but race isn't specifically mentioned. There's a common myth that the first person to own slaves in America was a black man, which is not true, but it did happen. In the most famous case, his name was Anthony Johnson, and the reason that we know about him is because of a court case involving a "laborer" of his who was allegedly set free and then Johnson tried to take him back. The courts ruled in Johnson's favor, which is one of the earliest incidences that we can point to to say "slavery must have been an accepted thing already since the courts already had precedence." Basically, we know that enslaved people came to Virginia in 1619, but specific laws about their treatment, status, etc. weren't a thing until decades later.

 

There's actually a lot we don't know about how Virginia and Maryland operated during the 17th century because records were lost and we've lost a bunch of context, but the first law that we know of that specifically mentions race was a law passed in Maryland 1664 that specifically equated blackness with slavery, essentially making it illegal to be a free black person in the colony. At the same time, they also made it illegal for white women to marry enslaved men (I suppose the theory was that if a white woman married a slave, there would be a case for his freedom, which could become a loophole).

 

It's important to note that these laws were NOT widely popular at the time. The most famous example of backlash would be Bacon's Rebellion in 1676-1677. Bacon's Rebellion could be considered to be America's first labor revolt and was comprised of indentured servants, slaves, and just people who wanted to fuck shit up in general (as an aside: these still aren't good people - part of the reason the rebellion started in the first place had to do with massacring native people and taking their land). People at the time could see what these laws were trying to do and weren't happy about it.

 

I say all that to say - part of the reason why our concept of "race" became a thing is a story of power and labor. "These are the people who perform labor, you can tell by the color of their skin," etc. It wasn't something that happened overnight; it took up to a century to develop.

 

 

... what were we talking about again?

Damn, that kinda turns a lot of what I knew on its head. Fascinating!

My main question is, what is the purpose of identifying as a different race? If that question can be answered, a lot of other questions get answered with it.

11 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

 

I need Biden gone. I did not sign up for genocide. 

 

Gaza and the economy are gonna ruin him.

Never seen a booming economy hurting a president.

8 hours ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Here’s an X-cretion about what you’re talking about I read the other day. The thread is wild. Breaking the rule since it’s very relevant. 
 

https://x.com/pandershirts/status/1740117254652711134?s=46&t=IBAi9a_ZSuLPcOuNLyHstQ

So "sex negative" means different things to different people, I gather. Either anti-porn, anti-physical abuse, or anti-public sex.

7 minutes ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

I can already see cleavages in Gen Z and onward in response to applying trans identities to spheres beyond gender.  The response to the case of Rachel Dolezal and the idea of being ‘trans-racial’ was quite revealing, for example.

Oh god, trans-race... Yeah that's a whole 'nother can of worms.

In the future I could see "trans" being a stigmatized term, and people are simply the gender they identify as without any acknowledgement of their birth identity. On that same token, not being attracted to someone who is a woman, born a man, might also be stigmatized as discriminatory. It's interesting because when it comes to physical attraction, even amongst the most socially liberal individuals, there's some acknowledgement that race plays a role. And since we know attraction can be learned or nurtured, how long will it be before that's all stigmatized?

I've never heard of that group @Greatoneshere. How did you find out about them?

Boy, it sure seems like it was mostly only black people that got arrested for this!

Oh, it was mostly only black people that got arrested for this.

6 minutes ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

I’ve decided that these rulings are actually more likely to be a boon for Trump than not.  I haven’t looked into the actual letter of the law, so they might be the right decision from a purely legal perspective.  But politically they’re going to help boost grassroots turnout and fundraising for him, at least for now. 
 

I believe the Georgia case might be a different story, though, depending on what comes out about what he did. (these cases don’t reveal anything we didn’t already know). And regardless I think the election will ultimately turn on other things.  I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll avoid a recession next year and that Biden can broker some kind of peace deal in the Israel/Gaza conflict.  That will be more consequential than any of this IMO.

 

Also, one last minor point: fuck Trump.

I failed my economics class in high school so forgive me, but why do you think a recession is still on the table next year? Because of international events?

I sometimes wonder if there's an eventual line with progressivism that I won't cross. Like if 20-30 years what's considered progressive goes too far for me.

It's like how a lot of boomers who were into the peace movement, free love and all that were considered VERY liberal for their time compared to their parents, are now basically all chuds pretty much. My mom who is pretty racist doesn't think she is probably because compared to the environment she was raised in, she's very open-minded. I'm WAY liberal compared to my parents but where will I sit on the scale decades from now?

I don't disagree with the reasoning but I still think this is largely futile.

Rage-baiting is big business.

A lot of them comedians who feel all types comedy should be allowable.

Seems more like social liberals with libertarian ideals that followed the same cow trail all libertarians eventually fall into towards the alt right.

Man this article and thread is actually therapeutic to read. Thank you.

Manager makes a bad kneejerk reaction, organization backs it up to preserve the appearance of authority.

Imagine all the shows and movies they'd cancel!

8 hours ago, outsida said:

Supreme Court boxed into corner over Donald Trump decision

WWW.NEWSWEEK.COM

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Donald Trump has been removed from the Colorado ballot, but the U.S. Supreme Court may be able to save his candidacy.

In its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court quoted Neil Gorsuch, who was a Colorado judge when he blocked a presidential candidate from the state ballot in 2012. In the 2012 ruling, Gorsuch noted that the independent candidate, Abdul Hassan, was born in Guyana, which excluded him from running for president and that Colorado has the right to set its own ballot rules.

"One of the things that you'll find in this ruling is some reliance is based on writings of Neil Gorsuch -- Justice Gorsuch -- and what he had to say about protecting ballots from people who did not belong on them," Nicolais told CBS News after Tuesday's Colorado Supreme Court decision. "So I think there's actually a very good chance we can win at the U.S. Supreme Court level."

Very interesting! They certainly tee'd this up in anticipation of a SCOTUS hearing.

I knew he was joking.

3 hours ago, legend said:

Pretty cool! I can't back this up, but I suspect our DNA holds of a lot of historical strategies that don't typically manifest but allow for very fast adaptation of the population because it's kind of already there.

I was literally just thinking this might actually be a regression to an older way of reproducing before pollinating insects. It's WAY easier for species to turn old genes on/new genes off than develop an entirely new gene.

IGN shockingly dropping a truth bomb here.

They would just write his name in. This doesn't actually do anything.

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

DC Studios Signs Jonathan Majors To $20 Million Contract

WWW.THEONION.COM

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LOS ANGELES—Just hours after Marvel announced they dropped the newly disgraced actor from all upcoming projects, DC Studios confirmed Tuesday it had signed Jonathan Majors to a $20 million contract. “We are so excited to welcome Jonathan Majors to the DC universe, and we can’t wait to see him act alongside our best…

 

Good lord I actually believed it for a minute.

9 hours ago, NeoJoe said:

I want them to scrap this whole Kang thing and move on to another villain. He's been a huge flop as a "big bad" imo.

Even without the drama behind the actor, I had zero hype for Kang the Conqueror. He got his ass beat in Quantumania, so I guess we're supposed to be excited to watch that happen XX amount more times.

Besides, with how Loki S2 ended, they have a perfect escape card from that storyline.

1 hour ago, mclumber1 said:

Regular "maintenance" might also help reduce the risk of certain diseases like prostate cancer.  

It's like taking a dump. You gotta take a dump to keep your body working. Imagine a reddit for abstaining from shitting. There'd be shit coming out of their mouths.

Incidentally that's how the MAGA movement was formed.